Matt Hancock will allocate the funding to social care packages.
Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

The government is set to inject an emergency £240m into the social care system in an attempt to ease pressure on the NHS this winter and stave off crisis in the ailing sector, which has endured a £7bn budget cut in England since 2010.

In a speech on Tuesday at the Conservative party conference, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, will announce the funds are intended to prevent unnecessary admissions and get people home quickly when they are medically fit to leave hospital.

“I want to help the NHS through this winter, too,” a draft of Hancock’s speech says. “I have already provided funding for hospitals to make upgrades to their buildings to deal with pressures this winter. And I can announce that today I am making an extra £240m available to pay for social care packages this winter to support our NHS.”

The money could buy 71,500 domestic care packages or 86,500 “reablement” packages, although councils, through which the funds are directed, can choose to spend the money on adapting homes.

The move comes after managers in the social care sector declared that it needed at least £1bn to adequately relieve the intensifying pressure faced by councils and care providers.

Recent research found that English councils planned to implement £700m of social care cuts in 2018-19, equivalent to nearly 5% of the total £14.5bn budget, meaning that this cash injection is likely to only mitigate falls in spending elsewhere.

The shadow social care minister, Barbara Keeley, said the amount earmarked by Hancock was “a drop in the ocean” and that Labour would rebuild social care services.

“There is a severe crisis in social care caused by eight years of Tory austerity and tinkering at the edges like this is not going to solve it,” Keeley said. “With 400,000 fewer people receiving care under this government than in 2010, funding such a small number of care packages is a drop in the ocean.

“Labour will rebuild social care services, starting with an extra £8bn across a parliament to start to ease the crisis, to lift care quality and ensure more people get the support they need.”

Cuts to social care have meant that patients who do not require further hospital treatment are often unable to return home because they have no one to care for them after treatment. This can place extreme pressure on hospitals when wards are at their busiest.

“We will use this money to get people who don’t need to be in hospital, but do need care, back home, back into their communities, so we can free up those vital hospital beds,” Hancock will say in his speech in Birmingham. “And help people who really need it, get the hospital care they need.”

Britain has an ageing population with about 1.5 million more over-75s expected in the next 10 years, meaning there will be ever greater pressure on social care services and the health system in years to come.

Ian Hudspeth, the chairman of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, welcomed the “desperately needed” injection of funds but said the government must find a long-term solution.

“Councils and providers cannot simply turn services on and off as funding ebbs and flows,” he said. “Putting in place the right services and workforce requires forward planning and longer-term contracts.

“Adult social care services still face a £3.5bn funding gap by 2025, just to maintain existing standards of care.”